


outline

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Art, F/F, Hook-Up, Past Sara/Nyssa - Freeform, Pining, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 02:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13871118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: After the end of the League, Nyssa tries to learn how to live like others do. Some things come easy, but some things don't.aka The first time Nyssa's with a woman after Sara, with a side of Nyssa being a pretty awesome neighbor.





	outline

Nyssa stands by the window with her arms crossed. She can see half the city from here. The river, a dark whorl through the lights of the city at night, spotted only with bridges and boats. A deep purple outline of foothills in the distance.

The room she has rented has several exits, all easier to defend than penetrate. It is too high up to be effective for work, but she isn’t here for work.

She has chosen this room for the view.

\--

She does not conform in all ways. She still knows that tea is vastly superior to coffee. She still does not tolerate men who shout lewdness at her in the streets. She does not need a “job,” now that all her secret accounts for purchasing weapons are no longer needed. 

But she learns to make “smalltalk” with neighbors and the local shopkeepers. It is neither pleasant nor easy, but she is not one to give up without a fight. 

She learns to enjoy the little citrus-flavored cakes at the café down the street. She learns to take long walks along the waterfront, the constant noises of the city smoothing together into familiarity, into something like silence.

She learns to play ping pong with the child who lives down the hall, the one whose mother works three shifts. She refuses to accept gifts of cash or gold from Nyssa, even when Nyssa makes up some reason to claim that it is a reward or that it was left by an unknown messenger, but she trusts Nyssa to be a companion to her offspring for some reason. 

The child is reasonably acceptable company, so Nyssa is willing enough.

The child also teaches her to use the Internet for something other than tracking the finances and whereabouts of her enemy. For example, while Nyssa still considers guns to be for the barbaric and unskilled, she does not mind when she turns out to be superior at online shooter games. In these games, her enemies complain loudly, and she and the child laugh. 

Months later, another neighbor invites her to “brunch,” which is pleasant enough, though obviously a form of decadence. Crème brulee-style French Toast is an especially worthwhile discovery. It is this neighbor who asks her if she has ever tried online dating. She warns Nyssa against certain “apps,” however, the ones that are full of men who just want a one-night stand.

Nyssa asks what a one-night stand is; it is a special night for those seeking a lover who are not sure if they know how to be in a "long-term relationship." Then Nyssa asks if there are apps full of women who want lovers. 

\--

“Is this your first hook-up?” the woman asks, her dark curls shifting as she tilts her head. She smirks a little.

Nyssa wonders what she did to give her inexperience away. “Of course not. I’ve been with a woman before.”

Nyssa reads her face, sees that the woman, Taren, has noticed that she said “a woman” instead of “women.” But Taren’s face goes gentle, and she says, “I mean, is this your first hook-up on the app?” 

“Oh. Yes. It is.” 

Taren smiles and softly puts her hand over Nyssa’s hand, and Nyssa recognizes it, the look on her face. It’s the same as when Sara realized that for all Nyssa’s deadly expertise, Nyssa knew nothing of love. The moment when Sara shifted from a predatory flirtation – which Nyssa found exhilarating enough on its own – to a protectiveness. The moment Sara decided that Nyssa’s heart was fragile and that Sara was going to hold it tight and safe and close to hers.

Nyssa feels like she can’t breathe.

But she is no coward. She tells Taren that the room is warm – the euphemism, the poetry of subterfuge that Sara once had to explain to her – and starts to unbutton her own shirt. Taren, just as Sara did, offers to help undress Nyssa, her lips filling into a deep smile. 

Soon, they are underway.

\--

At dawn, Taren is sleeping still, and so Nyssa looks around her apartment. She knows that people are private, so she opens no drawers or boxes, looks only at what is lying about. 

She runs her fingers over the books strewn about the room, the novels about women detectives in World War II, about heroines who lead revolutions in outer space. Large records made of vinyl, covers with women in short dresses, their legs as powerful as their voices. Photographs on the wall in black and white, buildings and landscapes in silver frames.

By the window, a book of blank paper, the sheets thick, like cloth. A box of dark sticks, charcoal pastels. She touches them and the black sticks to her thumb; she rubs her fingers and the mark spreads, pleasingly, an elegant smear across her skin. She flips through the book, looking at Taren’s drawings. Some faces, some nude bodies reclining on couches. Bowls of fruit. 

“Ah, the art class I never quite finished.” Taren says, smiling from the bed, her eyes still half-closed. “Do you draw too?”

“I did not mean to be intrusive.”

“Still so formal?” Taren says, amused. “Even after last night.”

Nyssa smiles and sits on the bed next to her. “Last night was… exquisite.”

Taren raises her eyebrows and laughs. “I had fun too.” 

Nyssa runs her fingers, the ones unmarked by the charcoal, along Taren’s jaw, moving to Taren’s lip and lingering there. Nyssa feels strange, scared and happy all at once, mixed with pain, with the loss of Sara crawling up from where Nyssa had tried to stow it. Yet Taren’s face, her perfect loveliness, her messy curls and sleep-crusted eyes and sated smile, are here, now, a sharp gleam of hope smiling against her fingertips.

“I do not know how to cook,” Nyssa says. “May I buy breakfast and bring it back for you?”

Taren looks uncomfortable. “I’m meeting friends in a couple hours. And I should probably answer some work emails before I go. So….”

“Of course.” Nyssa does her best to hide her disappointment, but guilt washes over Taren’s face and it is clear that Nyssa’s skills at deception are quite out of practice.

“Look, this was great,” Taren assures her, holding her hand once more.

“It is fine. The experience was quite pleasant,” Nyssa says and pulls her hands away, forcing her mouth into a smile. She knows she sounds too formal again, but she doesn’t know how to fix it. She turns away and quickly gets dressed, not looking at Taren again.

As Nyssa leaves, Taren says, “Look, I’m sorry if—“

“I’m happy to have met you. Have a good day.” 

Taren looks guilty still, like she pities Nyssa, and Nyssa must control her anger, must not seethingly inform the girl that Nyssa al Ghul is to be pitied by no one. “It is all right,” Nyssa says, smiling again. She reminds herself that this is all her own fault. She wanted a lover, not a spouse, and chose the app accordingly. 

Taren grabs the charcoal and the paper that Nyssa had pored over. “Here. Do you want these – I don’t draw as much as I should. You’ll use it more than I will.”

“I’ve never drawn anything except maps and plans,” Nyssa says, confused. Taren’s face tells her that this is something that normal people don’t say, but Nyssa no longer cares.

Taren is undeterred. She places the book and box of charcoal in Nyssa’s hand, and Nyssa doesn’t resist. “Maybe you’ll like it if you try.” She is gentle as she says it, kind, without judgment, and Nyssa wants to run away and wants to kneel and hold her close all at once.

She thanks Taren for the gift and quickly leaves.

\--

Nyssa leaves the art materials on her windowsill for a few weeks before touching them. The neighbor’s child asks her once why she is sad, and Nyssa replies that sadness is foolish and she is surely no fool. The child accepts this, or pretends to, and they go back to their game.

One night, she wakes up in the middle of the night and cannot fall back asleep. She could pace about the city, as usual, but she doesn’t feel like getting dressed. She drinks a fruit tea with lemon and walks around her apartment, trying not to think of her past..

She picks up the sketchbook eventually, and the dark sticks. 

She does not know what to draw, so she draws a cup of tea.

Simple enough. No great skill, but at least it looks like a cup.

She draws Nanda Parbat, and though she gets all the details right, in right proportion, it doesn’t feel anything like Nanda Parbat when she looks at it.

She tries to draw her father, but she does not capture him. She cannot make the eyes seem like his eyes.

It is the same when she draws her sister.

She tries to draw Sara then. Her eyes when she laughed. Her back, arched, tense and rapt with pleasure. The angle of her hip, the curve of her smile.

None of it looks anything like Sara, and Nyssa almost weeps.

She strengthens her resolve. She glances at herself in the mirror and decides to draw herself.

She lacks technique, it is clear. She is no artist. But she gets the angles of her face almost right, the chin and neck. The features are not well-drawn, but she supposes it is a small amount of progress.

She looks out the window and tries to draw the city. The hulking buildings, slim and elegant from a distance. The river, wide and dark, pulsing through the land. It is night, but as she looks out the window, she draws the city as it appears during the day. She knows about perspective from her childhood tutors, who showed her how to draw a plan of attack, and so she is not at such a loss as before.

When she is done, she compares her picture to her view out the window. It is similar only in components – it is not a particularly pleasing drawing – but it does look like the city. It does look like her view. 

Thousands of times, she has chosen a location for its vantage points. But never before, in her entire life, for a view.

Nyssa smiles at the picture. It is a good start.


End file.
